This month, Jonathan Franzen became the first living American novelist in 10 years to make the cover of Time. His Freedom — out this Tuesday, and his first novel since 2001's National Book Award–winning best seller, The Corrections — has been anointed the latest Great American Novel.

A quick survey of Freedom's advance reviews shows what's wrong with book criticism these days.

Time and Esquire both succumbed to Great American Novel Syndrome, an affliction whose symptoms reveal the strange premises on which contemporary book critics operate, in a space that's both depressing and deservedly marginalized.

Time sent Lev Grossman, whom the New York Times places "among this country's smartest and most reliable book critics," to spend the day with Franzen watching otters.

What does a distinguished writer have in common with our bewhiskered fish-eating friends? They're both under threat of extinction. For you see, Franzen is that rare being, the American Literary Novelist. He makes no concessions to trends or the marketplace. He alone shuns temptation and shows us The Way We Live Now.

As a Literary Novelist, Franzen is "painfully conscious," and so must bear the burden of those who are not. The insights he shares won't alienate the "beleaguered" modern reader — Grossman assures us we'll enjoy Freedom because it's not too difficult to read.

How does Franzen do it? Asceticism, duh. He locks himself away in "a rented office he has stripped of all distractions." He works on an "obsolete Dell laptop from which he has scoured any trace of hearts and solitaire," and whose Ethernet port he has sabotaged, MacGyver-style, with a file and some glue.

Half hagiography, half sales pitch, Grossman's profile brands Franzen as the one to guide us away from our iPhones and into the light. Does this portrait of the artist as bird-watching Messiah in nerd glasses benefit potential readers?

And who are these readers? An accompanying infographic suggests that they really don't know much about fiction. The floating heads of Toni Morrison (labeled here as an "Old Master"), Michael Chabon ("New Regime"), and Jhumpa Lahiri ("Young Turk") contextualize Franzen in a pantheon of Literary Novelists, must-reads in a supposed critical canon that, thanks to the Internet, no longer actually exists.

Grossman's "readers" are hostile as well as ill-read. "In the court of popular opinion," he claims, "all writers are guilty of being elitist pricks until proved innocent." It's doubtful that Grossman, a bestselling writer himself, believes this. Rather, to make Franzen palatable is to restore the writer and the beleaguered critic to a position of cultural authority.

That's a lot to ask of one cover story and some otters.

But Grossman's unimaginative worship of a self-flagellating male hero looks positively benign when compared with Benjamin Alsup's review-cum-hand-job in Esquire. Alsup uses our novelist friend as a cudgel to beat the writers and readers he so clearly detests.

He begins with the assertion not only that America has given up on books but that "many of our writers have given up on the very notion of greatness." This is silly bombast. Anyone who's willing to submit to the inevitable countless rejections from publishers is not looking to write books that are merely okay.

Review: Per Petterson plumbs The River of Time Why would Per Petterson — the bestselling Scandinavian writer whose books don't feature an invincible crimefighting heroine — curse the river of time when he is so adept at navigating it?

Interview: Maya Angelou shares her wisdom Though poet, writer, performer, teacher, and director Maya Angelou has made several visits to Rhode Island over the past two decades, her words of wisdom are always pointed reminders to those who have heard her speak before and wake-up calls to those who haven't.

Fall Books Preview: Reading list Even if you’re not back in the classroom, autumn inspires a desire to learn, to restore the intellectualism that was fried by too many beers and barbecues and sunburns. Fortunately, Portland is full this fall with opportunities to spark your smarts.

Exploring deep within Hannah Holmes, the Maine-born, Portland-dwelling science writer, naturalist, and friend to all animals has turned her lens deeply inward in her latest book, The Well-Dressed Ape: A Natural History of Myself .

Vegas and Jungleland Paul Shaffer is a happenin’ cat. Pick an It Moment from pop culture over the past 30 years and Shaffer was there. He was an original band member on Saturday Night Live . He played hapless promo guy Artie Fufkin in This Is Spinal Tap . Disco? He co-wrote “It’s Raining Men.” And he helped David Letterman break ground as his glittery, ironic bandleader/sidekick.

Fast and loose You're a cocky film-school grad with a drawer full of socko screenplays and Hollywood ambitions. But it's all California dreamin', as you're shivering in New England, cutting public-service announcements and digitizing educational videos, your only brush with the studios those Netflix rentals.

Coffeenomics In 50 states and 49 countries, the experience is the same: a placid sense of place, air suffused with the rich aromatics of fresh-brewed espresso. Customers dollop cream and sprinkle brown sugar into their drinks. Behind the counter, green-clad baristas grind beans and steam milk, smiling as they take orders in a made-up language.

Reading is fundamentalist In 2009, liberals held firm control of the presidency, the US Senate, and the US House of Representatives. But there was one realm where conservatives dominated: the New York Times bestseller list.

IS BOSTON RIGHT FOR WRITERS? | March 05, 2013 Boston, the birthplace of American literature, boasts three MFA programs, an independent creative-writing center, and more than a dozen colleges offering creative-writing classes.

INTERVIEW: THE PASSION OF MIKE DAISEY | February 14, 2013 Last January, storyteller Mike Daisey achieved a level of celebrity rarely attained among the off-Broadway set when the public radio program This American Life aired portions of his monologue The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs .

GETTING BOOKED: WINTER READS | December 21, 2012 Who cares about the fiscal cliff when we'll have authors talking about Scientology, the space-time continuum, and Joy Division?

BRILLIANT FRIENDS: GREAT READS OF 2012 | December 17, 2012 You already know Chis Ware's Building Stories is the achievement of the decade (thanks, New York Times!), but some other people wrote some pretty great books this year too.